Texas Archives - Page 5 of 6

Lady Bird Johnson, In Her Own Words

Between 1977 and 1991, Michael L. Gillette, executive director of Humanities Texas and former director of the LBJ Library Oral History Program, sat down with Lady Bird Johnson to discuss her childhood, family life and experiences as First Lady. For the first time anywhere, Not Even Past is publishing audio segments from these incredible conversations.

Lady Bird, 1915 (Image courtesy of the LBJ Library)

What happened when a young Lady Bird and a friend traveled to New York City in June 1934? Hear her impressions of Chinatown, Depression era poverty and a “museum for fish” she visited.

How did Lady Bird and LBJ meet? In this segment, she describes their very, very brief courtship and Lyndon’s almost immediate proposal.

After LBJ’s proposal, Lady Bird went out to San Marcos to meet Lyndon’s parents. Here she talks about first meeting Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and her impressions of the old Texas family.

“You’ve brought a lot of boys home, and this time you’ve brought a man.” These were the words of Lady Bird’s father after meeting Lyndon for the first time. Hear more about that initial encounter and life at the “Brick House,” Lady Bird’s family home in Karnack, TX.

Credits:

Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson Oral History Interviews, by Michael L. Gillette, LBJ Library

The Many Histories of South Austin: The Old Sneed Mansion

By Dennis Fisher

You wouldn’t think much of the limestone walls hanging on for dear life as you walked along Bluff Springs to get to the grocery store or the bus stop. Not least because they are set back about thirty feet from the road and concealed by trees. I first heard something about the walls and the Sneed mansion they once supported while walking along the Onion Creek greenbelt in South Austin. “The mansion on the hill was built by slave labor,” a local told me.

I decided to explore for myself on a recent drizzly Sunday. The entire neighborhood, mostly apartment complexes, a few empty lots, and bus stops, has grown up around this small patch of land, which has been just barely “preserved” (given its dilapidated state) by city officials. Walking past the crumbling walls of the Sneed mansion, marked by graffiti and littered with plastic bottles, evokes not only Austin’s past but also a sense of loneliness.

A black and white 1936 photograph of the Sneed House still intact taken by the Historic American Buildings Survey

A 1936 photograph of the Sneed House still intact taken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Sebron Sneed Sr. was born in Kentucky in 1802. He spent his early years bouncing around—first in the Missouri militia in 1823 and later in Arkansas practicing law. He married Marinda Atkins of Tennessee in 1824 and they both ended up in Austin, Texas in 1848 after the conclusion of the War on Mexico, making a new home for themselves. They both joined the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church—which still stands today on William Cannon across IH-35. Sebron started the local Democratic Party chapter in 1857. It’s probably not too hard to discern what the Sneed family thought about Texas in the 1850s. Coming from the Appalachian borderlands into newly conquered territory they probably hoped to prosper in a land that would soon expell its Native inhabitants—Tonkawa, Apache, and Comanche peoples around here—and in a place where black slavery was firmly entrenched and outside of the reach of the troublesome former Mexican government as well as the current Federal one—up until 1861, that is, when Lincoln was elected to the presidency. Sebron Sneed Sr. owned 21 people as property in 1860. One of them, Nancy Jane, was purchased by Sneed as “the highest bidder . . . of a certain mulato girl” in Arkansas in 1848 just before he relocated to Texas. We have no idea what Nancy Jane, almost entirely lost to us in the historical record, must have thought, felt, and dreaded–torn from her relatives and brought to a strange land.

Daguerreotype of Marinda Atkins (1809-1878), wife of Sebron Sneed, ca. 1849-1850 in an ornate gold frame

Daguerreotype of Marinda Atkins (1809-1878), wife of Sebron Sneed, ca. 1849-1850 (Image courtesy of Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library)

The location chosen for Sneed’s mansion still makes good sense. It stands on a hill that lifts slightly to the west but then drops down to where IH-35 currently sits. The land gently slopes downward on all remaining sides. Close by on the north and east sides of the house wind small streams that gently make their way downhill. Limestone, soft and porous, is readily available in this area. All of south Texas (and extending down into Guatemala and Belize) was covered by a shallow sea some sixty million years ago, which left behind as its primary legacy a thick layer of limestone—great for building houses and pyramids as well as collecting and channeling water into natural wells, creeks, and aquifers.

Sneed made his money in the legal profession. His papers, located at the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas, are full of promissory notes from clients. In 1860, he paid fifty dollars in “occupation taxes” as a lawyer. By looking at his tax receipts we find that he owned enslaved people, horses, cattle, and land in Del Valle (just east on Highway 290)—the numbers vary from year to year suggesting he sold people as well. In 1864, he paid his county taxes in kind with 545 bushels of corn. During the war he made money by selling two enslaved men—Peter and Isaac—to Confederate General Magruder for building fortifications at Galveston. If Sebron saw Texas as a promised land, his vision and future rested firmly on the foundation of white supremacy. Furthering that vision, Sneed opened his mansion in south Austin as a recruiting station at the outset of the Civil War and later as a convalescent home for returning wounded soldiers. Both he and his son fought in the war—he as a provost marshall and his son as a captain. Sebron Sr. would die in 1879, at the time engaged in “agricultural pursuits”—the records shed little light on this post-war aspect of his life. He would be buried in the adjoining family cemetery along with his wife, other family members, and “infant Sneed.” After the war, his son moved downtown to Colorado and 3rd and kept busy as a lawyer, acting Comptroller, and later as superintendent of Travis County schools.

Black and white photograph of the second floor fireplace of the Sneed House, 1936

Second floor fireplace of the Sneed House, 1936 (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Today echoes of that era linger in both small and not so subtle ways. Ranch owners along the Onion Creek greenbelt still regularly take their horses out along the trails and locals flock to McKinney Falls to play along the limestone and creeks that crisscross the area. Confederate flags still find a place at rallies at the capitol as well as on t-shirts and pickup trucks. But today south Austin at William Cannon and IH-35 looks very different. Anglo-Americans, African-Americans, Native-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Mexicans all call this place home. Hispanic Texans constitute the majority of enrolled students in a state that could swing Democratic in a decade or less in a country that has twice elected an African-American to be president. Looking at what remains of the Sneed mansion serves to remind us of the very different histories that have inhabited these places.

If you’d like to learn more about the Sneed family:

A 1982 issue of the Austin Genealogical Society which includes an 1860 letter from Sebron Sneed jr. to his wife

The Sneed House’s city zoning information

A guide to the Briscoe Center’s Sneed family papers

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Lady Bird Johnson interviewed by Michael Gillette

By Michael Gillette

I had already conducted the first five oral history interviews with Lady Bird Johnson when she telephoned my LBJ Library office one day in the spring of 1978. Her first words were “Hello, Mike. How would you like to do something zany?” Before I could speculate what she could possibly mean by “zany,” she explained: “Would you like to accompany me to my fiftieth high school reunion in Marshall, Texas?” I eagerly accepted the invitation.

The trip was an extraordinary adventure in time travel that added rich context to her oral history narrative. The reunion with old Marshall High School friends brought out her youthful spirit and warmth. As she addressed the gathering, I thought of her graduation fifty years earlier when her shyness was so excruciating that she was relieved to learn that her class ranking—the third highest–spared her from having to give a speech. But now, as the former first lady delivered an eloquent, humorous, nostalgia-filled speech, she spoke effortlessly.

The East Texas trip took us to several landmarks of her youth. We walked around the stately antebellum Brick House, where she was born. We stopped at the beautiful, lonely country Scottsville cemetery where her mother was buried when Lady Bird was five years old. We climbed into jon boats and ventured onto Caddo Lake amid the haunting majestic Cypress trees, laden with Spanish moss. I could readily see how she had developed her love of nature in such a spectacular setting.

In August 1977, almost a year before our trip, I had begun the series of oral history interviews with Mrs. Johnson that would ultimately comprise forty-seven sessions. Our interviews usually took place on weekends at the LBJ Ranch, where interruptions were minimal. My oral history staff and I would prepare a chronological outline for each year, along with a thick file of back-up correspondence, appointment calendar entries, and press clippings. Mrs. Johnson would review the entire folder of material to refresh her memory and make notes before we began recording each interview. Over a span of fourteen years, I conducted the first thirty-seven interviews. After my transfer to the National Archives in Washington in 1991, Harry Middleton, the LBJ Library director, continued the interviews.

In 2011, two decades after my departure from the LBJ Library staff, I learned that the library was preparing to release Mrs. Johnson’s long-sealed interviews in May of that year. I immediately prepared a book proposal to Oxford University Press, which had recently published a new edition of my Launching the War on Poverty An: Oral History. Once Oxford approved the project, my task was to edit her 470,000 words into a manuscript of less than half that length in time to publish it before Mrs. Johnson’s centennial in December 2012.

Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History consists of three concurrent tracks. The first track presents her perceptive observations of life in two capital cities during a span of four decades. As a witness-participant, she vividly describes the events and personalities that shaped our world. The second track is the phenomenal political rise of Lyndon Johnson through a combination of good fortune, consummate political skill and resourcefulness, and incredibly hard work. The third and most compelling track is the transformation of a shy Southern country girl into one of the most admired and respected first ladies in American history.

If the picturesque rural setting of her youth fostered a love of natural beauty, her isolation also imposed self-reliance and a love of reading. There simply wasn’t much else to do. Her education was pivotal to her transformation. Two years at St. Mary’s College in Dallas instilled an appreciation of the English language, a measure of independence, and an enduring religious faith. Next came her four years at the University of Texas, which brought not only academic rigor, but also an active social life that she had never enjoyed before. In Austin she became more confident, more aggressive, and more willing to extend herself.

But a glimpse of Claudia Taylor’s life in mid-1934 suggests that something is missing. She is smart, intellectually curious, and shy but popular with many friends in Austin. Although she is not beautiful, her charm and appealing presence make her attractive to a succession of college beaus. She has just graduated with her second degree, majoring in Journalism. She has also earned a secondary teaching certificate, but she seems to view teaching as an opportunity to travel to exotic places rather than a vocation. She has also taken typing and shorthand courses so that she can, if necessary, secure a job as a secretary.

And yet she has no real plans for her future. Instead of pursuing a career, she takes a graduation trip to New York and Washington and then moves back to Karnack to spend a year remodeling the Brick House for her father. Her plan is, in her words, just “to see where fate led me,” as if she were a mere spectator of her own life. What is missing here is ambition; ambition that gives drive, direction, and purpose to life.

But Lady Bird’s life dramatically changes on September 5, 1934, with a chance encounter while she is visiting her friend Gene Boehringer in the state capitol. Suddenly, a young man named Lyndon Johnson walks in. He asks her to have breakfast the next morning. After breakfast and a day-long drive around the hills of Austin, he asks her to marry him.

The introduction of this powerful, unexpected force creates a terrible dilemma for Claudia Taylor. She is pressured to make the most important decision of her life within a span of less than three months. She barely knows the young man, and the fact that he is 1,200 miles away during most of their brief courtship makes it difficult to become better acquainted. But she must agree to marry this young man and move to Washington, or he will drop out of her life forever as quickly as he entered it. Her fear of losing him ultimately prevails over her innate caution.

If opposites attract, one can easily imagine that there was, as she described, “something electric going on” when they first met. The two were strikingly different in many ways. She was conservative, cautious, and judicious; he was liberal, impulsive, and always in a hurry. Her calm, gracious, shy demeanor contrasted with his expansive, demanding, volatile temperament. If she was thrifty, he was given to acts of extravagant generosity. She was essentially private and self-reliant, while he desperately needed people around him. She was a studious reader of books; he was at heart a teacher whose text was experience.

But what did she see in Lyndon Johnson? It was his drive, his forcefulness, his raw, honest ambition to which she was attracted. As she wrote during their courtship, “I adore you for being so ambitious and dynamic.” He gave her what she was missing; he shared with her his ambition, his sense of purpose.

The man whom Mrs. Johnson characterized as “a regular Henry Higgins,” contributed to her transformation in two ways. First, he “stretched” her, as he did everyone around him, challenging her to do more than she thought possible. At his urging, she extended herself to speak in public, to run the congressional office in his absence, to manage a radio station, and to renovate the dilapidated LBJ Ranch. His increasing confidence in her day after day, year after year, spurred her on. He also facilitated her growth by placing her in the daily company of intelligent, sophisticated women and men in Washington during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, as she phrased it, “the society he thrust me into.” She attended and hosted countless teas and dinners for some of the nation’s most informed and interesting personalities, among them: George Marshall, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Astor, Tommy Corcoran, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Anna Rosenberg Hoffman, Paul Porter, Oveta Culp Hobby, and Josephine Forrestal. Through the Congressional Club for spouses, the Seventy-fifth and Eighty-first clubs, the Senate Ladies Club, and the Texas establishment in Washington, she participated in an extraordinary, continuing salon for almost thirty years before entering the White House.

The more Lady Bird Johnson changed and grew, the more she influenced LBJ’s life and his fortunes in a high-pressure profession. Her husband reaped the benefits of her warmth and grace as a hostess. Sam Rayburn, Dick Russell, and others who were instrumental in advancing LBJ’s career frequently enjoyed informal dinners in the Johnson home. And as Lady Bird Johnson’s political involvement and sophistication grew, her role in her husband’s rise to power expanded. Throughout his career, her good judgment and soothing comfort kept him on an even keel, while mending fences that he had damaged. Although she was virtually excluded from his first campaign for Congress in 1937, she became increasingly active in each of his successive races, and, by 1948, her role in the 87-vote cliff-hanger against Coke Stevenson was pivotal. When a kidney stone attack immobilized LBJ and he was on the verge of withdrawing from the race, she spirited him away to the Mayo Clinic, while keeping him from the press. She overcame her fear of public speaking to campaign for him throughout the state in the run-off. Finally, in the 1964 Presidential campaign, she rode the Lady Bird Special train through the South to become the first First Lady to campaign independently for her husband.

An apprenticeship as a congressional wife, a Senate wife, and as a frequent stand-in for Jacqueline Kennedy during the Vice Presidential years made Lady Bird Johnson one of the best prepared First Ladies ever to enter the White House. Her experience and skill served her well during the tumultuous 1960s. She assembled a professional staff in the East Wing of the White House and mobilized legions of influential, resourceful women and men to beautify and conserve the nation’s environment. With Washington, DC as their initial focus, they created a spectacular showcase for millions of American tourists could see what was possible in their own hometowns. Next she traveled through the country to draw attention to its scenic beauty and the threats to the nation’s environment. To her, beautification was just one thread in the larger tapestry of clean air and water, green spaces and urban parks, scenic highways and country side, cultural heritage tourism, and significant additions to our system of national parks.

Lady Bird Johnson’s environmental leadership was only one facet of her remarkable legacy as first lady. She also continued her predecessor’s quest for authentic furnishings and important American art for the White House. She recognized the achievements of women with her Women Doers Luncheons. Embracing the Head Start program, she gave it the prominence of a White House launch.

She participated gracefully in an endless succession of presidential trips, state dinners, congressional receptions, and other social events, including two White House weddings. At the same time, she provided LBJ with, in her words, “an island of peace” throughout his heady, turbulent presidency. Finally, she bequeathed to posterity an historical legacy: her White House diary of more than 1,750,000 words and forty-seven oral history interviews, comprising almost another half-million words.

Michael L. Gillette, Lady Bird Johnson: An Oral History

Download video transcript

Women Shaping Texas in the Twentieth Century

By Cristina Metz

Throughout the twentieth century, women began occupying influential public roles. A new exhibit at the Texas State History Museum, Women Shaping Texas in the Twentieth Century, tells the history of Texas women who revolutionized key areas, such as healthcare, education, civil rights, the workforce, business, and the arts. The objects on display in the exhibit, curated by Dr. Paula Marks, professor of American Studies at St. Edward’s University, include historic photographs of women’s social clubs and political activism, and other examples of material culture, such as a World War II nurse’s uniform, as well as several works of activist art. There is even a formal dress straight out of Texas Governor Ann Richard’s closet! In addition to the exhibit, the museum will host a lecture series that will expand on central themes in Texas women’s history and it will soon open a related exhibition called Enduring Women: A Photography and Oral History Project about women living and working on the land in west Texas. These will undoubtedly enrich the experience of visitors to the museum and promote a deeper appreciation for the accomplishments of thousands of ordinary women.

To inaugurate the exhibit and related events, the museum held a symposium on December 8, 2012, titled The Future of Texas Women’s History. Moderator Paula Marks, posed a series of questions to a panel of distinguished historians—Nancy Baker Jones, Judith McArthur, Cynthia Orozco, Merline Pitre, Rebecca Sharpless, Jean Stuntz, and Elizabeth Turner—that focused on the past and current state of historical scholarship about Texan women. The panelists represented a cohort of professional historians who began expanding the fields of women’s and gender history, especially that of the U.S. South and Southwest in the last three decades. Their responses reflect this unique position as professionals in a male-dominated field and suggest ways of expanding what we know about women’s lives.

One question that Marks asked was why women’s history became popular in the 1970s. The panelists pointed out that it took a long time for U.S. women’s history to develop. Not only was the scholarship lacking women, so was the historical profession itself. Dr. Merline Pitre recalled, for instance, that she went through her entire undergraduate and graduate career without having had a single female historian for a professor. A 2005 report of the AHA Committee on Women Historians shows that Dr. Pitre’s experience accurately reflected the dismal state of the field for women given that they filled only 5.9 percent of full professorships in American universities. What accounted for an increase in the number of women historians—and historians doing women’s history—said another panelist, was a growing cadre of women’s liberation activists turned academicians.

Women’s history is today a field unto its own, with its strengths and weaknesses. Several panelists lauded the richness of the scholarship on Texan women. It is growing in quantity and improving in quality. Persistent challenges, however, stem from the struggle for sources. Professional historians spend years gathering primary source material that undergirds their historical analyses, as opposed to what one panelist called descriptive histories of “‘gee wiz’ spectacular women.” A lack of research funding makes it that much harder for historians to produce the texts that today’s readers need in order to engage critically with the legacies of women’s key roles in Texan politics, culture, and society.

Another strength of current scholarship is the growing body of work that details minority women’s experiences. Scholars like Ruthe Winegarten have published books about tejanas and black Texas women. In this area, however, there is still room for improvement. Cynthia Orozco, a professor of History at Eastern New Mexico University, underscored the persistent scarcity of Latina and other minority historians. She was emphatic in her challenge to current historians to support Latina/o students who show a potential for historical research and writing. Her own academic trajectory is replete with examples of the immense challenges that women of color face along the path toward becoming academic historians. She received her B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin in 1980, but was advised to accept an offer of graduate admission at UCLA because it was one of the few institutions where she would have enough support to become a historian of Chicana/o history.

These challenges highlight the promise of future research on the history of U.S. women, especially right here in Texas. The distinguished panel identified areas in need of investigation including, for example, women in grassroots politics, the Texas women’s movement of the 1970s and its response to issues beyond the Equal Rights Amendment, and the struggle for black women’s suffrage. The symposium pointed the way for those who aspire to write women’s histories. It also highlighted the importance of collaboration among scholars to continue to expand the field since, as the exhibit proves, women in Texas have made great strides in many areas, but, as the panelists agreed, there is still more work to be done.

Enduring Women: A Photography and Oral History Exhibit, February 2 – May 19, 2013

You may also enjoy:

Michael Gillette, “Liz Carpenter: Texan”

Photo Credits:

Portrait of former Texas Governor Ann Richards (Image courtesy of user: Clarkwrichards/Wikimedia Commons)

Women shipyard workers, Beaumont, Texas, 1943 (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Images used under Fair Use Guidelines: See Wikipedia:Non-free content.

An Architectural History of Garrison Hall

By Henry Wiencek

As students and faculty members resume their classwork at Garrison Hall this semester, it is worth examining the iconic building’s colorful history and architectural conception. The first stages of Garrison’s development began in 1922 as the Board of Regents sought a new campus plan for the university. Although the Board had been employing the eminent New York City architect Cass Gilbert—whose achievements include the U.S. Supreme Court building, the Woolworth Building and various state capitols—pressure from local architects to patronize a Texas firm resulted in Gilbert’s termination. Subsequently, the University hired Herbert M. Greene of Dallas, James White of Illinois and Robert Leon White of Austin, who collaborated on a 1924 campus plan that included the future Garrison Hall.

Architects Tag for Garrison Hall at the University of Texas at Austin

Construction began in 1925 and finished the following year, producing the 54,069 square foot edifice at a cost of $370,000. Initially known as the “Recitation” building the new structure eventually borrowed its name from George Pierce Garrison (1853–1910), the history department’s first chair and a founding member of the Texas State Historical Association. Hired by the university in 1884, Garrison assumed responsibility for teaching the entire history curriculum and earned a reputation for domineering style. Even after the department hired additional faculty in 1891, Garrison refused to allow his colleagues to teach any U.S. subjects.

Blueprint of the architectural drawing of Garrison Hall at the University of Texas at Austin

The building’s design blended classical aesthetics with Texas iconography—pairing wide archways and Ionic flourishes with renderings of cacti, steer skulls and 32 Texas cattle brands. Texas pride is also evident on the second floor’s exterior, which is adorned with the names of prominent state figures: [Stephen F.] Austin, [William Barret] Travis, [David G.] Burnet, [Sam] Houston, [Mirabeau B.] Lamar, and [Anson] Jones.

Detail on the blueprints of the architectural drawings of Garrison Hall at the University of Texas at Austin

Throughout its existence, Garrison has accommodated numerous departments, including English, government, psychology, sociology, philosophy, economics and history—its only continuous occupant. However, Garrison has also housed other, less desirable, elements of the university as well. William Battle, Chairman of the Faculty Building Committee, described these “residents” in an October 1931 letter to Goldwin Goldsmith, the Architecture Department’s Chair: “I noticed that the north entrance to Garrison Hall is a harboring place for bats. It is evident to the senses of both sight and smell.” Responding one week later, Goldsmith lamented that “I do not see how to protect the entrances from these loathsome creatures, but Miss Gearing tells me that the Comptroller’s office has an excellent way of dealing with them. It is apparently by using fire-extinguishing apparatus.” Fortunately for Garrison’s present occupants, the University resolved this unintended infestation.

Details of the Skull Freize on the blueprints of the architectural drawings of Garrison Hall at the University of Texas at Austin

In 2008, Garrison underwent an extensive renovation that modernized its facilities while restoring its historic features. In addition to its remodeled interior, the building also resides amidst a very different University of Texas. The UT tower, completed in 1937, now dominates the campus; and no longer do students use the halls for “loitering and smoking” as history professor Walter Prescott Webb (1888–1963) once observed. Nonetheless, Garrison maintains a strong continuity with its history and functions as both a figurative and literal time capsule: the building’s hollow cornerstone contains university newspapers, correspondence and ephemera dating back to the early 20^th century.

All photos courtesy of:

The University of Texas Buildings Collection
The Alexander Architectural Archive
The University of Texas Libraries
The University of Texas at Austin

Works Cited:

Nicar, Jim, Texas Exes, UT Heritage Society, and UT History Central, “An Ode to Garrison Hall”
Steinbock-Pratt, Sarah, “Some Notable Personalities in the History Department”

Boxing Shadows, by W.K. Stratton with Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron (2009)

By Anne M. Martínez

In November 2005, Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron entered the ring for one of her most important bouts: a chance to win the Women’s International Boxing Association junior flyweight title. At 35, fighting in her opponent’s hometown and having lost her last four fights, Anissa was considered the underdog. San Antonio’s Maribel Zurita, a decade Zamarron’s junior, had earned the title three months earlier and was overwhelmingly favored to retain it. After ten full rounds, as the fighters awaited the scoring result from the judges, Anissa took comfort in the belief that she had fought the best match of her career. In the eight months since her last fight, she had eaten better and trained harder than ever before, and her preparation paid off: her trainer, Richard Lord agreed. “You did a great job,” he repeated, as the ring announcer came to the microphone. Anissa didn’t know it at the time, but it was her last fight, and she won: WIBA junior flyweight world champion!

Movie poster of the movie Boxing Shadows

Boxing Shadows tells the story of Anissa Zamarron’s life in Central Texas, including her rise to two-time world champion boxer. To those unfamiliar with the sport, Boxing Shadows offers a primer on the training, traveling, and match-ups of the early years of professional women’s boxing. Zamarron fought in the first sanctioned women’s bout in New York State along with a number of international bouts before women’s boxing was much of a blip on the radar of most American sports fans.

Black and white image of the Bennett sisters boxings, c. 1910

The Bennett sisters boxing, circa 1910.

But the book, co-written by Zamarron and sports writer Kip Stratton, is about much more. Boxing was not just a meal ticket for Zamarron, it was a life-saver. She was born in San Angelo, Texas, and her family moved to the Austin area when Anissa was seven. Shortly after, her parents separated and her family was divided. Her brothers — her heroes — lived with their father and Anissa went with their mother who, having married in her teens, relished a freedom she had never experienced before, to work full time, go to happy hour every night, and date. The loss of the structure of family life, the longing for the company of her brothers, and the rough and tumble apartment complex where she spent these formative years pushed Anissa further and further into darkness.

Image of Anissa "The Assassin" Zamarron in the midst of a boxing fight

Anissa “The Assassin” Zamarron (The Women’s Boxing Archive Network)

Anissa felt a strong self-loathing as early as second grade, began cutting herself in middle school, and was committed to a mental hospital for the first time in her early teens. She discovered boxing in 1993 at age 23. After years of therapy, self-mutilation, and struggle, boxing was an outlet for the demons that drove Zamarron to hurt herself. Boxing did not end her battles with herself, but gave Anissa ways to work through challenges in the gym, rather than in her mind. Zamarron is open about her struggles with learning disabilities, mental illness, and drug addiction. Her success in the ring offers inspiration for others struggling to overcome similar challenges to reach their goals.

Master-at-Arms Seaman Rhonda McGee, left, spars with Patricia Cuevas during an exhibition match in the preliminary rounds of the 2011 Armed Forces Boxing Championship.

Boxing Shadows is devastating in its frankness, uplifting for its courage, and all the more impressive when one meets Anissa. In May of 2012, I visited Anissa at Richard Lord’s Boxing Gym in Austin, Texas to talk about Boxing Shadows. [You can see the video interview at the bottom of this page or on our Youtube channel here.] Zamarron is marked, more than scarred, by her past. She is surprisingly forgiving of those who disappointed her or otherwise contributed to the internal battles she fought as a child. After the interview, Anissa prepared to spar, and even then, nearly seven years after her last bout, in the ninety seconds it took Richard Lord to wrap her hands, the Anissa I had just interviewed was completely transformed. She forgot about the camera, disconnected from everybody in the gym, and began moving like a boxer — even standing still. Focused in a way I had not seen in the half dozen years I had known her, at that moment — “The Assassin” was back.

Video Credits:
Producer: Amanda E. Gray
Co-Producers: Therese T. Tran and Anne M. Martinez
Cinematographer: Therese T. Tran
Editor: Amanda E. Gray
Colorist/Online: Therese T. Tran
Transcriber: Lizeth Elizondo

Photo Credits:
All photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Except the photo of Zamarron in the ring, which comes from the Women’s Boxing Archive Network

You may also enjoy:
More by Anne Martínez, “Rethinking Borders”
More on women’s athletics: “Title IX: Empowerment Through Education”

“Home Economics Training is for the Improvement of Home and Family Life?”: African American Women Professionals and Home Economics Training in Texas, 1930-1950

This year, third year doctoral student Ava Purkiss received the prestigious L. Tuffly Ellis Best Thesis Prize for Excellence in the Study of Texas History. Her paper, titled “‘Home Economics Training is for the Improvement of Home and Family Life?’: African American Women Professionals and Home Economics Training in Texas, 1930-1950,” examines African American enrollment in the home economics major at Prairie View A&M University in the 1940s. Read the abstract to her award winning paper below.

Abstract:

In 1943, Prairie View A&M University published an academic catalogue that described the careers that black women could pursue with degrees in home economics. As a historically black institution, Prairie View provided important social and economic opportunities to African Americans in Texas. The catalogue asserted that students’ prospective careers included “teaching home economics and parent education groups, managers of tea rooms, school dormitories, cafes and cafeterias, hotels, child health centers, nursery schools, [and] home demonstration agents.” Evidently, home economics provided opportunities for black women to raise their vocational statuses beyond menial labor. At the time of the publication, home economics was the most popular major for women at Prairie View with thirty out of eighty-two female students enrolled. These Prairie View students represented a few of the African American women in Texas who challenged racial, social, and economic inequality by creating a cadre of professionals through home economics education. My paper argues that black Texas women used their training in home economics as a professionalization tool, and entered the labor force as home demonstration agents (state employees who worked in rural homes), teachers, and entrepreneurs between 1930 and 1950. Despite the extant literature that presents white women as the leaders in home economics, numerous black women in Texas proved to be resourceful and enterprising black home economists. Using college catalogues, newspapers, hall of fame nomination forms, interviews, and demonstration agent reports, this paper expands typical categories of “feminized” professions while enhancing our understanding of the nature of black entrepreneurship, the African American middle-class, self-help, and education within Texas historiography.

Photographs of the aformentioned academic catalogues, published by Prairie View A&M University in the 1940s, that described the careers that black women could pursue with degrees in home economics (All courtesy of the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin).

Image from an academic catalogue from the 1940s depicting the careers that black women could pursue with degrees in home economics

About Ava Purkiss:

Ava Purkiss is a third year United States history student at the University of Texas at Austin. She studies African American women’s health and physical culture in the early twentieth century, with a focus on the economic, political, and social barriers to exercise that African American women encountered and ultimately circumvented in pursuit of health and fitness. She will spend the summer of 2012 conducting pre-dissertation research in various U.S. archives under the direction of her advisor, Dr. Tiffany Gill. Ava earned her B.A. in psychology from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA and her M.A. in African New World Studies from Florida International University in her hometown of Miami, FL.

Visit Ava Purkiss’ homepage.

“Captive Fates: Displaced American Indians in the Southwest Borderlands, Mexico, and Cuba, 1500-1800.”

by Paul Conrad

This past May, the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin awarded the Lathrop Prize for Best Dissertation to Paul Conrad, a PhD graduate in early American history. His dissertation, titled “Captive Fates: Displaced American Indians in the Southwest Borderlands, Mexico, and Cuba, 1500-1800,” chronicles the history of Native American capture by Euroamerican settlers in the Greater Rio Grande River Basin.

Abstract:

Between 1500 and 1800, Spaniards and their Native allies captured hundreds of Apache Indians and members of neighboring groups from the Rio Grande River Basin and subjected them to a variety of fates. They bought and sold some captives as slaves, exiled others as prisoners of war to central Mexico and Cuba, and forcibly moved others to mines, towns, and haciendas as paid or unpaid laborers. Though warfare and captive exchange predated the arrival of Europeans to North America, the three centuries following contact witnessed the development of new practices of violence and captivity in the North American West fueled by Euroamericans’ interest in Native territory and labor, on the one hand, and the dispersal of new technologies like horses and guns to American Indian groups, on the other. While at times subject to an enslavement and property status resembling chattel slavery, Native peoples of the Greater Rio Grande often experienced captivities and forced migrations fueled more by the interests of empires and nation-states in their territory and sovereignty than by markets in human labor. Uncovering these dynamics of captivity and their effects on Apachean groups and their neighbors serves to better integrate American Indian and Borderlands histories into central narratives of colonial North American scholarship.

Contemporary view of the Rio Grande, New Mexico.

Map of the Rio Grande River in 1718.

Castle of San Juan de Ulua (Veracruz, Mexico) where Native captives were housed en route to Cuba.

About Paul Conrad:

Paul Conrad is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He will spend the 2012-2013 academic year at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, where he has received a research fellowship to work on revising his dissertation into a book manuscript.

Visit Paul Conrad’s homepage.

Photo credits:

All photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew”

by By Allison E. Schottenstein

This year’s Perry Prize for Best Master’s Thesis went to Allison E. Schottenstein, a third year doctoral student in Jewish History. Her thesis, titled “‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew,” tells the story of Rabbi Sam Perl’s efforts to unite the Mexican and Anglo communities within the Texas town of Brownsville, as well as integrate the border town with its sister city of Matamoros. Read the abstract of Schottenstein’s thesis, as well as her biography, below.

Abstract

“‘Perl’s of Wisdom’: ‘Rabbi’ Sam Perl, New Models of Acculturation, and the ‘In- Between’ Jew” examines archival materials from the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The Brownsville Herald and El Heraldo de Brownsville to demonstrate how Sam Perl — an Eastern European Jewish immigrant who changed the face of Brownsville, Texas — redefines historical approaches to Jewish acculturation. In this bordertown, Perl not only revitalized the Jewish community when he became the temple’s lay-rabbi, but he also actively united Mexican and Anglo communities both in Brownsville and across the border in its sister city of Matamoros. In Perl’s efforts to simultaneously revitalize his own religious community and the greater social landscape of the border area, Perl proved that he did not need to conform to the expectations of Anglo-Christian identity to succeed. Challenging theories of whiteness studies scholars, Perl never sacrificed his Jewish identity, had a boulevard named after him, and came to be known as “Mr. Brownsville.” Indeed, Perl’s profound impact on the Brownsville-Matamoros community was the result of his ability to occupy an “in-between,” interstitial position that did not require him to blend in with majority cultures; that is, Perl remained distinctly Jewish while simultaneously involving himself in both Anglo and Mexican arenas. Immersing himself in every aspect of bordertown life, Perl occupied multiple roles of community authority, serving as a businessman, rabbi, a Charro Days founder, cultural diplomat, court chaplain and radio host. A close examination of Perl’s life and considerable legacy demonstrates how new acculturation models are needed to better understand the manner in which Jews like Perl have adapted and contributed to dominant cultures.

Jewish immigrants arrive in Galveston, Texas in 1907.

A 1917 photograph of students sitting in front of a San Antonio Texas Jewish Synagogue.

An H. Budow postcard from 1918 features the Jewish Temple in San Antonio, Texas.

Sam Perl smoking a cigar while playing pool.

About Allison Schottenstein:

Allison E. Schottenstein was born in Columbus, Ohio on March 18, 1986 to Gary and Gail Schottenstein. In 2004, Allison attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. She received a combined degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies as well as Women and Gender Studies. Allison graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2008. From 2008-2009, Allison served as an intern at the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. She entered the University of Texas at Austin’s doctoral program in History in 2009.

Visit Allison Schottenstein’s homepage.

Photo credits:

Photographer unknown, “Jewish immigrants arriving in Galveston, Texas,” 1907.

Courtesy of the UT Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio

Phootgrapher unknown, “U.S. San Antonio Texas Jewish Synagogue,” 1917.

Courtesy of stephaniecomfort/Flickr Creative Commons

Artist unknown, Untitled, 1918. Courtesy of Addoway.com Frances Perl Goodman, “Sam Perl,” Undated.

Courtesy of Frances Perl Goodman via the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life

You may also like:

Professor Robert Abzug’s DISCOVER piece, in which he shares photographs and memories of trips throughout historically Jewish communities in South Texas.

Professor Miriam Bodian’s DISCOVER piece – titled “A Dangerous Idea” – about a young Jew who went on trial before the Portuguese Inquisition in Lisbon in 1495 after being captured in Brazil.

Making History: Christina Salinas

Interview by Aragorn Storm Miller

In the third installation of our series, “Making History,” Aragorn Storm Miller speaks with Christina Salinas about her experience as a graduate student in history at the University of Texas at Austin. In the interview, Christina tells us about her childhood spent living near the Texas-Mexico border, the long history of the Texas Border Patrol, and how her research interests have evolved over the course of her undergraduate and graduate career at the University of Texas.

Christina Salinas is a PhD candidate in the history department at UT Austin. Her dissertation explores social relations forged on the ground between agricultural growers, workers, and officials from the U.S. and Mexico, and their impact on shifting national approaches to border enforcement and Mexican migration during the 1940s. She argues that, although border control policies have rested within the bounds of federal authority, it was the interconnection between federal power and local geographies of culture and history that inhabited these policies and gave them meaning.

You may also like:

The inaugural episode of “Making History,” which features an interview with UT history graduate student – and author! – Christopher Heaney.

The second episode of “Making History,” featuring an interview with seventeenth-century Caribbean scholar Jessica Wolcott Luther.

« Previous Page

Recent Posts